It’s not news that some people prefer dogs and some people prefer cats. While I happen to own two cats (which my spouse says makes us lesbians – peace), I have always fancied myself more of a dog person. Yes, I’ve had more cats than dogs in my life, but that’s just because cats are lower maintenance. Even cat haters can’t (and don’t) argue with that.

A few months ago, I decided it was time for a dog. Took it on as a project if you will. In layman’s terms, that means that for the past several weeks slash months, I have been torturing myself on petfinder.com.  There are lots of cute dogs who need a home, people. Trust me, I’ve seen all of them in the tri-state area, and even some in, say, Virginia because, like…..Virginia’s not *that* far and we could drive it. I would on occasion (read: once/twice per diem) send one of these dog’s mugs to my spouse. He mostly ignored these pictures (because,obviously, he is heartless); once in a while he would make a mildly snide to downright rude comment about a particular dog’s failings.

Then one day a couple of weeks ago, out of the clear blue sky (as at this point, spouse’s only other reaction to dog snaps was to tell me he was not ready for a dog, not yet, no sir), the mister started sending me pictures of adoptable dogs. As in HE would send to ME. Did he not understand how my system worked? I could obsess; he could ignore. That all changed in the blink of an eye with one stealth cute/paste/reverse psychology maneuver. I let him know I was onto his tactics all the while eagerly opening each link he sent. Let me be clear that he picked some duds (one dog was 15).  But apparently so had I. His one condition was the dog had to be small. My one condition was NO FUCKING PUPPY.

As we looked at dogs, my excitement both grew and morphed into….how do I put this….terror. My burgeoning problem with my spouse’s new-found excitement in a dog was two-fold. First, who said I wanted a dog? Petfinder shcmetfinder, we were now talking about getting an actual mutt and not window shopping  for hypothetical ones. I started flashing back to the blizzard last winter where my prime thought was not how empty the city streets were, but more “I’m glad we don’t have a dog today!” I thought about the times I’ve watched those poor, sad dog owners trying to coax their pets into the deluge otherwise known as heavy rain, shoving an entire fist into their dog’s mouth to get out a rancid chicken bone, wiping things dangling from their beasts’ rears. I  also flashed forward to the upcoming winter where spouse would be traveling and I would be walking said dog three times/day in the brutal cold, all the while doing pick-ups and drop-offs at two different schools (don’t get me started on that one. No really, I could talk about it forever – and have).

My other issue was that I don’t really like small dogs (other than French Bulldogs, because, come on). Here’s what I like: Pit bulls (not allowed in my building), Rottweilers (also not allowed in my building) and anything with a large mug and floppy ears. Here’s what I don’t like:  Dainty looking “dogs” smaller than my felines. Still, spouse insisted. I got his point on the size thing because who, if not my children, would be walking the dog? (Oh wait), but it was a hard sell. I felt like I was dating again and forcing myself to give some guy to whom I was not remotely attracted a chance because maybe he’d be “nice” or “funny,” or because he’d grow on me (fail, fail, eh).

Then this supposed better half of mine sent me a picture of a size-appropriate decent looking dog. She was cute-ish (or “jacked up and looks like she *really* needs to be adopted” said one sister) and not tiny. I filled out the requisite rescue shelter application forms, a process that can only be described as more laborious than applying to graduate school. Soon (references checked) we were told this lass was a match.

The night before we journeyed to Westchester to meet this gal, my emotions ranged from mild nausea to panic to overwhelming dread. Spouse was saying things like “let’s go get our dog!” And I was saying things like “WE ARE NOT NECESSARILY GETTING HAWAIIAN TROPIC (that was her name. Really).” and “JUST BECAUSE WE DRIVE AN HOUR, DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE GETTING A DOG.” I use all caps just in case you missed the fact that I was having some sort of nervous break-down.

Well….it turns out Hawaaiin Tropic was not our dog. For starters, I had a minor altercation with her psychotic foster owner who told me the dog might not be good with kids (she had 3 of her own ranging form 8-12, aka the same ages as my kids) or cats (she had one, all fine) and who seemed incapable of letting go of the dog’s leash. Meanwhile her daughter was saying things like “I think my mom wants to keep this one!” (as if that was difficult to guess). This lady – and her compatriots at the shelter – seemed horrified at the idea of any dog in their community moving to the big bad city. My application was approved! I wanted to yell (did not. figured one altercation was enough).

So we moved on and looked at other dogs. After looking around for any potential fits (there didn’t seem to be any that we qualified for, what with living in Manhattan and all) and after husband/son teamed up and tried to convince me/daughter to give they OK to the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen (and not jolie laide, just ugly), who also showed no interest in us (like everyone else there),  we got back in the car empty-handed.

Instead of feeling relieved, as I thought I might, I felt vaguely disappointed. Maybe I was ready for a real and not imaginary dog after all. Or maybe the 1/2 Klonopin I took to, like, function as human, was doing its job. Whichever. So, we decided to go to one more shelter, this time in Manhattan where perhaps the thought of owning a dog in a city apartment would not seem incongruous with our ability to love and care for a member of the canine species.

As we walked through the dog section of the shelter, every dog snapped to action, barking to get our attention, knowing that we may be its chance of survival. Most of these dogs were big. One more medium-sized one was “human selective” and, channeling the Westchester crew,  took an immediate dislike to every member of my family. A third smaller one was insanely cute but, we were told, had some “serious” medical issues and would probably do better in a home without kids.

Through all of the chaos, one dog sat curled in a ball in her cage. She was small. She was not ugly. She was calm. She looked up at us…

And that is how we broke up our lesbian relationship and became dog owners again. Day 5. No regrets.